It's not hard - stop killing old trees

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The Coalition's plan for Tasmania's old growth forest could not even be called greenwash.

Released less than two hours before the first of the evening news bulletins went to air, the policy document prominently displayed the promise to add 170,000 hectares to the existing reserve system.

But which 170,000 hectares? There was some vague name dropping of areas such as the Styx and the Tarkine but no maps, no science and no details of exactly what land would be set aside.

That is because those boundaries will be determined at a post-election date by the Tasmanian and federal forestry and environment ministers.

No wonder the National Association of Forest Industries and similar groups rejoiced.

The industry and the Tasmanian economy have thrived on logging and felling some of the oldest and largest trees in the world and selling them for as little as $14 a tonne.

Those same trees were supposed to be this campaign's icon environment issue, the Franklin Dam of 2004.

They might have made it as a talking point but the ending was far bleaker than any environmentalist could have imagined.

What brings tears of frustration to the eyes of those in the environment movement is that the old growth issue is not that complicated.

It is basically a lot of very, very old and very, very large trees that are one by one being killed to produce things like woodchips and toilet paper.

Not cutting them down, in order to allow this generation, and all the ones that are to come, to revel in their awesome splendour, is the answer.

Of course the people whose livelihoods are threatened by this transition need to be looked after. No one is suggesting otherwise.

But Labor's package offers them $800 million and opportunities in other parts of the timber industry as well as the inevitably expanded tourism sector that would thrive on preserving those magnificent tree specimens.

The Coalition does not offer those same workers much of a future after those trees are gone.

And once they're gone they're gone, taking the jobs and their majesty with them.